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Tranquility Through Observation
I spent all morning Friday on a sailboat off the coast of Ft. Lauderdale. The weather was perfect, to ocean was calm, and the sun was shining. By all accounts, I ought to say being out on the boat was relaxing and serine. But see, I wasn’t really there on the boat for much of the time. I was aware of the motion of the waves gently rocking the boat under me. I knew the warm breeze carried the salt air through the sails and moved us along and the coastline passed by in the distance. I didn’t have much of a chance to really observe these things though, to really take them in and enjoy them. I was in my head, back in my office, worrying about work, thinking about what I’d have to attend to after I got back to shore.
I’ve been a lot of places in my life without ever actually being there. I’ve looked at a lot of things without ever actually seeing them. That’s the menace of anxiety. It robs me of life experiences without remorse. Anxiety often consumes my present and feeds me my past and future, and so I have a tendency to be perpetually absent from my own life.
The ubiquitous advice to live in the moment is cliche, but it’s truly the only way to overcome anxiety. But it’s hard to do, at least for me and I suspect for most people who worry like I do. It’s amorphous advice — by what process does one actually live in the present? Most of the time, this advice presents…
